The Soldier is the god of every poor soul who finds himself alienated on a battlefield, with vicious enemies on one side and commands that appear to originate from madmen on the other. The Soldier is the god of stoicism, of duty, of determination even as the world around you seems to be falling apart. On another level, the Soldier is all about fidelity to oneself: sticking true to one's principles right to the bitter and bloody end.
Right now the Soldier is worried. (The Soldier is always worried, but now moreso.) It's worried because it can see the Gods getting killed off one by one as their power drops. It suspects that some sort of final battle might be drawing near. If not a battle, then definitely a conflict. Either of those possibilities is better than going silently off into the long night-- if it goes, the Soldier definitely plans on going out kicking and screaming.
The Soldier is especially worried because the best method it can think of for achieving this is strengthening humanity's ties to the core concept of the deities, and that means starting wars. But being the incarnation of the front-line trooper, the Soldier is quite aware of the reality of the front line of war. If it starts war, lots and lots of the very people it embodies will die a horrible, horrible death, and that can't be good for it. It is going to have to kill itself in order to live longer. But then, paradoxes and dilemmas-- especially those involving death-- are the Soldier's bread and meat.
The Soldier's barge is a battered, rusty chariot pulled by two clapped-out horses that seem to be forever nearing death. It is manned by the few followers of the Soldier who stayed firm right to the bitter end: they now serve as an eternal honour guard for him as his chariot journeys between the stars.
Kyla Ornishee was a housewife in Vintaro who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The wrong place was at home with five children. The wrong time was when the Empire's troops attacked Vintaro with the express intention of abducting each first-born.
Kyla hadn't been trained in combat and she only had the clothes she stood up in, but somehow she managed while defending her eldest child to rout the squad of soldiers who burst into her house using only a kitchen knife. When reenforcements arrived, they found her clad in archaic-looking armour, wielding a dull greatsword with light pouring from her eyes. The Empire were butchered to a man, and Kyla... vanished.
She still lives on in urban legends. They all take the same form: a meek, mild-mannered woman is being made to suffer in silence: maybe by her loutish oaf of a husband, maybe by a callous, sexist bureaucracy, or maybe even by a group of vindictive, gossiping old wives. In the middle of the night, a tall lady in a housewife's uniform walks straight into the perpetrator's home armed only with a frying-pan, rolling pin, or other such household implement, and proceeds to bludgeon them to death, vanishing by the next morning.
Sergeant Bluster has always been something of a legend in the Empire's army. Private after private claims to have served under him, though his name never turns up anywhere in the army's paperwork. He's variously described as fat, thin, red-cheeked, pale, calm and vigorous. What never changes are his actions. He's an inspirational leader. He is determined, he is down-to-earth, he fights like a tiger to protect his men, and he never, ever, *ever* gives up.
The truth is that the real Sergeant Bluster is not a member of the army. He's the head of a cult worshipping the Soldier. Their members have infiltrated the army and spread their gossip about him, telling war-stories and anecdotes about the terrifyingly inspirational leader who used to command their unit. From time to time, particularly talented members have even passed themselves off as the Sergeant in order to convert whole platoons. Not to the inner ring of the cult, but to the simple belief that Sergeant Bluster is out there somewhere, looking after people. Every time someone makes a joke about him, every time a private hears the story, Sergeant Bluster gains a little more power.
Lieutenant Sternos doesn't know what the hell's going on. It all started when as a Captain he copied the code QDC (Area secured) instead of ODC (Send backup immediately) and caused the deaths of a hundred men. Since then, everything he does in military intelligence has been jinxed. He's been shuttled back and forth between operations in the hopes of finally getting rid of this walking disaster-area, and just as he was about to be shot for gross misconduct urgent orders came through halting the execution and promoting him to General after one of his blunders inexplicably resulted in a unit advancing fifty miles through enemy territory, destroying all resistance and capturing the enemy capital.
Sternos is, of course, being used. His first little mistake opened his mind up to the Soldier, and the Soldier realised the usefulness of a confused and inept lieutenant in exerting the right kind of control over the Empire's army. It keeps on acting through him, foiling whichever of the Army's plans it wants stopped. Sternos remains oblivious to all of this, though it's said that Sergeant Bluster's men are planning on kidnapping, murdering or converting him; possibly all three. The last five who tried suddenly and inexplicably received orders to march ninety miles across no-man's-land unarmed, and were court-martialled when they refused.